Adam's Apples

This fun video (4 minutes) was created in 2014 for a biology class at Stanford. It speaks for itself. Bonus points if you can name the fruit (not an apple, really, and what's with that?) that inspired the soundtrack.

BOTTOMS UP I've called them "chins" and have also heard "feet." The question, however, is about the true name of the bumps on the calyx end of the apple. The answer is crown.

The genetic heritage of just a handful of apples dominates commercial production, according to an analysis in the science journal Horticultural Research this month. The top 8 cultivars (really, top 3) dominate the orchard genome The authors ( Migicovsky et al. ) suggest that the lopsided use of these "elite cultivars" by apple breeders "leaves the apple industry vulnerable to evolving pests and pathogens and a changing climate." The study applies recent advances in gene-sequencing technology to the USDA apple germplasm collection . These new methods make feasible an analysis of this scope.

I write about apples, not current events. But we are all affected and afflicted by this terrible moment in human history. To all of us, take care.  And wassail.